Design of experiment (DoE)-driven in vitro and in vivo uptake studies of exosomes for pancreatic cancer delivery enabled by copper-free click chemistry-based labelling

Exosomes (Exo)-based therapy holds promise for treatment of lethal pancreatic cancer (PC). Limited understanding of key factors affecting Exo uptake in PC cells restricts better design of Exo-based therapy. This work aims to study the uptake properties of different Exo by PC cells. Exo from pancreatic carcinoma, melanoma and non-cancer cell lines were isolated and characterised for yield, size, morphology and exosomal marker expression. Isolated Exo were fluorescently labelled using a novel in-house developed method based on copper-free click chemistry to enable intracellular tracking and uptake quantification in cells. Important factors influencing Exo uptake were initially predicted by Design of Experiments (DoE) approach to facilitate subsequent actual experimental investigations. Uptake of all Exo types by PC cells (PANC-1) showed time- and dose-dependence as predicted by the DoE model. PANC-1 cell-derived exosomes (PANC-1 Exo) showed significantly higher uptake in PANC-1 cells than that of other Exo types at the longest incubation time and highest Exo dose. In vivo biodistribution studies in subcutaneous tumour-bearing mice similarly showed favoured accumulation of PANC-1 Exo in self-tissue (i.e. PANC-1 tumour mass) over the more vascularised melanoma (B16-F10) tumours, suggesting intrinsic tropism of PC-derived Exo for their parent cells. This study provides a simple, universal and reliable surface modification approach via click chemistry for in vitro and in vivo exosome uptake studies and can serve as a basis for a rationalised design approach for pre-clinical Exo cancer therapies.